…leaping, turning handsprings, and generally reveling. Remember Fiske’s Law of Genealogy? Well, cousin Jan Branham has come through magnificently with the only known photograph of my 2nd great-grandfather, John Kelly. I am absolutely thrilled and refuse to wait for the next Wordless Wednesday (besides which, this post appears to contain words), so here you go.

It is time again for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – thanks to Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings. Somehow by the time Saturday night rolls around, I’m much too tired to assemble one of these — but they’re just as much fun on Sunday afternoon, when I have more brain cells available.

1) List your 16 great-great-grandparents in pedigree chart order. List their birth and death years and places.

2) Figure out the dominant ethnicity or nationality of each of them.

3) Calculate your ancestral ethnicity or nationality by adding them up for the 16 – 6.25% for each (obviously, this is approximate).

4) If you don’t know all 16 of your great-great-grandparents, then do it for the last full generation you have.

5) Write your own blog post, or make a comment on Facebook or in this post.

Well, I’m missing 3 of my 16 great-great-grandparents still, but it’s safe to assume they’re all Puerto Rican, so without more ado–

24. Lott J Tierney (635) was born on 15 Aug 1833 at Clare, Ireland. He married Margaret Connell (496) on 27 Nov 1860 at St. Mary’s Church, Lowell, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA. He died on 9 Apr 1915 at Dayton, Montgomery, Ohio, USA, at age 81.

25. Margaret Connell (496) was born on 1 Aug 1835 at Tipperary, Ireland. She died on 6 Dec 1918 at 1526 Richard, Dayton, Montgomery, Ohio, USA, at age 83.

26. John Kelly (684) was born on 24 Nov 1840 at Tipperary, Ireland. He married Johanna Leahey (75) circa 1865. He died on 16 Feb 1905 at North Union St, Union City, Randolph, Indiana, USA, at age 64.

27. Johanna Leahey (75) was born in 1848 at Tipperary, Ireland. She died on 9 Aug 1894 near Union City, Indiana [but I don’t know which side of the Ohio-Indiana state line].

28. John Kohl (693) was born in Aug 1840 at Hesse Darmstadt, Germany. He married Gertrude Berg (580) circa 1867 at Germany. He died on 5 Jan 1903 at 320 W North St, Springfield, Clark, Ohio, USA, at age 62.

29. Gertrude Berg (580) was born in Feb 1843 at Hesse Darmstadt, Germany. She died on 14 Apr 1908 at Springfield, Clark, Ohio, USA, at age 65.

30. Philip John Weyrich (812) was born on 17 Feb 1844 at Hesse Darmstadt, Germany. He married Mary Engel (397) on 20 Dec 1870 at Dayton, Montgomery, Ohio, USA. He died on 10 Jan 1906 at Dayton, Montgomery, Ohio, USA, at age 61.

31. Mary Engel (397) was born on 15 Jul 1851 at Dayton, Montgomery, Ohio, USA. She died on 1 Dec 1919 at 1232 Xenia Ave, Dayton, Montgomery, Ohio, USA, at age 68.

…. for a grand total of 50% Puerto Rican (16-23), 25% Irish (24-27), and 25% German (28-31). Which I could have told you before doing this exercise, but as Randy points out, it’s nice to have your tree published so searchers can turn it up.

The numbers in parens in the list are each individual’s ID in my TMG database.

This article charmingly states “Fiske’s law of genealogy: ‘Genealogy is finding the person who has done all the research.'”

Well, this has been a particularly lucky summer for me, as I have been contacted by not one but TWO cousins who have done just that!

Leo Hart, whose grandfather’s grave stone is pictured here, has shared a wealth of material pertaining to our TIERNEY origins in and around Dysert, County Clare. This includes material from another genealogist cousin whose mother was in the US for some years as a housekeeper for her great-uncle, Rev. Michael M TIERNEY (mentioned here), and who then returned to Clare. Most breathtaking is a photo of the gravestone of John TIERNEY and his wife Bridget MARKHAM TIERNEY (my ggggrandparents), taken by Leo in 2003. That stone was erected by Rev. Michael, who apparently spent all of his career (1874-1914 or thereabouts) in Iowa, ministering to communities which seem to have been largely composed of other immigrants from County Clare.

Jan Branham contacted me because of my “brick wall” post on John KELLY, also her brick wall. (If you’ve been wondering if genealogy blogging is worth the trouble, wonder no more — the answer is yes. Your audience can be just you and Google’s search spider, until someone goes looking for the information *you* have!) Jan is revisiting the graves in Union City, Indiana, and together we are going to take aim at the brick wall and tear it down, stone by stone.

Finally, Junel Davidsen, CG, (not a cousin of mine as far as I know) has been helping me accumulate the probate papers and related laws and lawsuits surrounding the estate of Julia Anna TIERNEY of Dayton Ohio, mentioned here, so that picture is coming clearer.

If you’ve wondered why I haven’t been blogging or updating my genealogy database, it’s because my laptop was stolen (argh!) from my office (double argh!). While, yes, my data is all backed up, we’re waiting for the insurance before we go acquire a replacement. I’m using the one-before laptop (the one that amazingly survived a coffee spill) but it’s a Powerbook G4 and cannot run Parallels, and therefore cannot run TMG. Its disk is also too small to restore everything that was on the lost machine, so I have to pick and choose.

I didn’t think to restore my electronic copy of Evidence Explained last night, which was silly, since I much prefer to include correct citations with my photographs. Nonetheless, I’m doing the genealogy happy dance now, and will do it again when I can share this all with you!

Per Miriam’s splendid suggestion, I’m going to attempt a writeup of one of my current challenges in family history. (I’m not overly fond of the phrase “brick wall”.) As a novice genealogist, however, I am modifying Miriam’s instructions, in that I am perfectly glad to be told “you should check database thus-and-so.” I don’t expect anyone to do my work for me. 🙂

What I Want to Know:

John KELLY’s parents, and the date and location of his marriage to Johannah LEAHEY.

John Kelly is listed as a 31yo white male farmer, Irish born, with both parents of foreign birth. He is also listed as a citizen. He is shown with his presumed wife Johannah, age 20, born Ireland, and presumed children Catherine (3, born Canada), Ella (2, born Ohio) and John (3/12, born Ohio).

John KELLEY, age 40, farmer, is listed with wife Johanna (age 30) and children Catherine (14, born Canada), Ella (12, born Ohio, as are her younger sibs), Johnny (10), Margaret (8), Thomas (6), Mary (4), Edward (3), and farm laborer John PIERCE (50, born in Ireland).

9 Aug 1894, Mrs. Johannah KELLY dies of heart trouble. Schirack and Schirack Jr., Notes from Union City Times, Death notice of Mrs. Johanna Kelly. Cites 17 Aug 1894 Friday Union City Times. While I’m not detailing the sources here (unless asked — this is becoming quite a pile of words as it is), Johannah has brothers and sisters living in the area, and there are several pointers to Tipperary origins for these LEAHEYs.

25 Feb 1905, the will is probated. Citation is to Record of Wills, Darke County Probate Court, volume not noted, p 392-395. Also have copies of applications for letters testamentary and letters of administration, the latter signed by all the heirs (his children).

John’s youngest son Robert Emmett applies for a passport, stating of his father:

… my father John Kelly was born in Ireland and is now deceased; that he emigrated to the United States from the port of Liverpool England on or about 1849; that he resided 57 years, uninterruptedly, in the United States from 1849 to 1906 at Darke County Ohio; that he was naturalized as a citizen of the United States before the Darke County, Ohio [“court” is on the form here, but is lined through] […]

Searches Done:

Phyllis Crick of the Garst Museum in Greenville, OH kindly sent me their surname files on KELLY. She found an 1865 naturalization for a John KELLY, but in Darke County. A check of KELLY naturalizations in Miami County in this time period only turned up a Samuel KELLY. She also sent me the will and letters testamentary for John KELLY, the purchase and sale records for his farm in Darke County, and copies from extraction books of the Union City newspapers.

Ancestry.com search (exact) for KELLY/KELLEY in Brown, Miami, OH in the 1800s in census and voting records shows three groups of KELLYs: a John born in Ireland which I believe is my subject, a group born in Delaware (includes a John and a Samuel), and a group born in New Jersey.

A Footnote.com search for John KELLY between 1845-1880 in Ohio turns up four Civil War pension file index cards. I dismiss two because they are for widows (we know my John outlived his wife). The other two are for invalid pensions. It seems like an unlikely lead (see my Theories, below), but if someone tells me I should check it out, you should also tell me how. 🙂

Searched http://dcoweb.org and http://randolph.dcoweb.org for KELLY and KELLEY. Found an obit for Thomas Francis KELLY, John’s son. Found a 1902 directory for Union City, IN which lists on Rural Route 5 “Kelley John — Thos, Ed, Maggie, Mary, Robt., Jose, Celia”.

Unchecked Possible Resources:

Request Indiana death certificate (in process).

Query St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Union City, IN for records.

Research extant Catholic churches in Brown Twp, Miami OH during the period he was there, and query them for KELLY records.

Suspicions and Theories:

I have two theories for why his eldest daughter was born in Canada, when all her younger siblings were born in Ohio or Indiana. First: he was ducking the Civil War by skipping north over the border. Second, that he went back to Ireland to marry his wife (I don’t know where the marriage was, or when, except that Johannah first appears as his wife in the 1870 census, and their oldest child was born in 1865) and returned with her through Canada, taking enough time at it that Catherine was born north of the border. Speculation on these lines very much welcome!

My mother (b. 1946) reports being taken, a couple times, to reunions for ARMSTRONG-KELLY-CULLEN-LEAHEY. Of note is that she remembers the older attendees lamenting that the younger generation didn’t have much interest in the reunions, as they didn’t know their cousins. This made me very excited when I determined that Johannah LEAHEY KELLY’s mother was Catherine ARMSTRONG. It also makes me think of chain migration. I have ample evidence that these LEAHEYs originated in Tipperary, which makes me trust the information from Catherine KELLY DILLON’s 1920 census the more.